Even with these necessary eliminations in the interest of space for newer poets, the general scheme of the series — that of small, intimate volumes that shall be typical of the period, rather than exhaustive — has made it impossible to include all whose work I should otherwise have been glad to represent.
While I have not hesitated, where a poet's earlier work seemed finer and more characteristic than his later, to draw upon such earlier work, in the main `The Second Book of Modern Verse' has been selected from poetry published since 1913, the date of my first anthology.
Jessie B. Rittenhouse
New York
September 23, 1919
Contents
Abraham Lincoln walks at Midnight. [Vachel Lindsay]
Acceptance. [Willard Wattles]
Ad Matrem Amantissimam et Carissimam Filii in Aeternum Fidelitas.
[John Myers O'Hara]
After Apple-Picking. [Robert Frost]
After Sunset. [Grace Hazard Conkling]
Afternoon on a Hill. [Edna St. Vincent Millay]
Afterwards. [Mahlon Leonard Fisher]
Ambition. [Aline Kilmer]
The Ancient Beautiful Things. [Fannie Stearns Davis]
Apology. [Amy Lowell]
April on the Battlefields. [Leonora Speyer]
April — North Carolina. [Harriet Monroe]
Atropos. [John Myers O'Hara]
Autumn. [Jean Starr Untermeyer]
Autumn Movement. [Carl Sandburg]
Ballad of a Child. [John G. Neihardt]
Behind the House is the Millet Plot. [Muna Lee]
Berkshires in April. [Clement Wood]
Beyond Rathkelly. [Francis Carlin]
Birches. [Robert Frost]
The Bitter Herb. [Jeanne Robert Foster]
Blind. [Harry Kemp]
Blue Squills. [Sara Teasdale]
The Breaking. [Margaret Steele Anderson]
Chanson of the Bells of Oseney. [Cale Young Rice]
The Chant of the Colorado. [Cale Young Rice]
The Child in Me. [May Riley Smith]
The Chinese Nightingale. [Vachel Lindsay]
Choice. [Angela Morgan]
Cinquains. [Adelaide Crapsey]
The City. [Charles Hanson Towne]
City Roofs. [Charles Hanson Towne]
Compensation. [William Ellery Leonard]
Convention. [Agnes Lee]
Cradle Song. [Josephine Preston Peabody]
The Dark Cavalier. [Margaret Widdemer]
The Day before April. [Mary Carolyn Davies]
Days. [Karle Wilson Baker]
Death — Divination. [Charles Wharton Stork]
Dialogue. [Walter Conrad Arensberg]
Dilemma. [Orrick Johns]
Doors. [Hermann Hagedorn]
Dream. [Anna Hempstead Branch]
The Dream of Aengus Og. [Eleanor Rogers Cox]
Dusk at Sea. [Thomas S. Jones, Jr.]
Earth. [John Hall Wheelock]
Earth's Easter. [Robert Haven Schauffler]
Ellis Park. [Helen Hoyt]
The Enchanted Sheepfold. [Josephine Preston Peabody]
Envoi. [Josephine Preston Peabody]
Evening Song of Senlin. [Conrad Aiken]
Exile from God. [John Hall Wheelock]
Eye-Witness. [Ridgely Torrence]
The Falconer of God. [William Rose Benet]
"Feuerzauber". [Louis Untermeyer]
The Fields. [Witter Bynner]
Fifty Years Spent. [Maxwell Struthers Burt]
The First Food. [George Sterling]
Flammonde. [Edwin Arlington Robinson]
The Flower of Mending. [Vachel Lindsay]
Four Sonnets. [Thomas S. Jones, Jr.]
Francis Ledwidge. [Grace Hazard Conkling]